:s>3>y>:» :» 



► ■-2>^ :»> "> '^"T^* > :2> j£> ~ 


»>I>-» 


> j> ■:^>;)>:>3^>i':i>is> '""T 


:»>:30 


> !>• r3>^>ro:s- ::z>s> •' '~ 


:»:s:> 


> .2> " :3> ^^-^S^::* ^T3> 2> 


>&2> 










> "z>' ::3i> :>'^jQo» i::*.:^^^ ' 




:> ' ;^z»' .~:^»'>5:>:»>, ~"i::>^:» ^^ 


.17>23> 


:> , i:>>."-:s»s>:>:*> tt*;^:^ 


z:>^3> 


:> >E>> ":-:s>>S3f*-'-":i>"Si^ 


t:>3> 


z> '^z>^ "3>r'S» i:>':m> 


3>^> 


::> ^i:>> ^3>-:5>->-..::>"5>l> 


i>3> 


Z> 5>i>' '■:g>>:5»_:"13^'5:»3> 


z>:3s> 


!:> :,)S:>-" ■'5>-';33'> ^i:>3i:> 


Z>3> 


::» >i«>z> ';:s>>]s» •i^^^s::^'"" 


_>'53?> 


3 




>^:^iQ 




5 


► ?>;■> .^:^>5S8> — 


^^^5131 


► Z>3> 






¥i^ 


► ^3> 


3 


►~>^za> "'»"'^> ,_ 


^P^JS*!^^ 


^ r» 


■H 


^sT^ '-T^^^ _ 


3^I3>II^3 


^ '>> 






;iE>s* 



IlIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 









jr/^/i-VlZ % 



UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. ? 



























b) 






























:C>^^J> 












B3^ 












>W* 



► p^ 



Ti:>i>':i>„ 



>S->"^ '1>' :r::> ~>:i»>^ 



>> :>:> Z>> ii> "TIJ*- i'>. 






ISC* > 



o s> 



Z> J>iS 












;IM c in r i a I 



• )K THE LATE 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF CHARLESTON, S.C. 
MARCH 25, 1863. 



NEW YORK: 
RICHARDSON & COMPANY, 

540 BROADWAY, 
1866. 



;Mcmotlal 



OF THE LATE 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BAR OF CHARLESTON, S.C. 
MARCH 25, 1863. 



NEW YORK:C/t^ 
I^, I C n A R D S N & C ai P A N Y, 

540 B R A D W A Y, 
18G6. 






Entered, according to Act of Congres?, in Uio year 1800, by 

RICHARDSON & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New Yorlc. 



PREFACE. 



Mr. Petigru's virtues and attainments are too fully commemorated 
in the following pages to require notice in this preface. Such meet- 
ings as we here record, often assume a perfunctory character ; but 
this was remarkable for the number and distinction of the participants, 
and the much more than ordinary exhibition of respect. It represent- 
ed, too, every hue and shade of our State politics, from the avowed 
Unionist, on through the moderate States-rights' men, to the extreme 
secessionists. 

All came together there, from their diverse points, like pilgrims 
to a common shrine, to ofier the united tribute of their respect and 
love. 

It is not our purpose, therefore, to add any thoughts upon a topic 
so fully and ably treated ; but, in giving to the world those eloquent 
memorials of veneration for Mr. Petigru, we would take the op- 
portunity of correcting some misapprehensions which have gone 
forth in regard to his political and social position in this commu- 
nity. 

About the first, there is, to this extent, no room for question 
whatever. He was an ardent lover of the Union, and he had faith 
in the efficacy of a strong government to sustain it. There is no 
diversity of opinion on this, and it needs no elaboration. 

A friend, from his own experience, furnishes a touching proof 
of this sentiment. Soon after the Ordinance of Secession was 
passed, he accosted him in Broad Street, with this remark, " Mr. 
Petigru, these are times which require every man to define his 
position. You were a good soldier in the War of 1812 ; your 



4 PREFACE. 

captain told me so: where are you now?" They were walking 
at the time, and the old man bowed his chin on his breast, and 
walked on for some distance in silence (his friends will recall the 
manner) ; and at last, lifting up his head very quickly, he made 

this only reply, " W , I have seen the last happy day of my 

life." 

But, while Mr. Petigra's devoted love for the Union is bejond 
all dispute, his position and views of the late struggle have been 
misunderstood and misrepresented. 

It is said that his love of the Union was paramount to his love 
of the State, and that his diiferences entailed upon him persecu- 
tion and oppression. 

Nothing could be further from the fact than both of these 
statements. 

Mr. Petigru's position was this : He loved the Union ; he 
would have given his life to preserve it. He considered the course 
of the State wrong in principle, and fatal in its consequences. 
He would have prevented secession by any sacrifice it would 
have been in his power to have made. But this is all. No one 
can truthfully assign to him a more complete position, as a Union 
man, than that. He deplored the war ; he considered us mad in 
attempting it : but, when it was begun, he felt that his State was 
his mother, and to her he owed his all. If it were not so, why, 
at his advanced age, did he undergo hardships and privation among 
us, instead of imitating those craven spirits who took flight at the 
first note of danger? 

Even before the war, he was urged to settle at the North, whose 
people, he was assured, appreciated him as we did not. He was 
elected anniversary orator of the Story Association ; and he was 
much urged, in and out of his family, to accept. Why did he not 
emigrate, when, in forty-eight hours, he could have passed through 
the lines ? It was because he felt it his duty to stand by the 
State throush weal and through woe. 



PREFACE. 

Mr. Petigru's sympathies were not with the United-States arms, 
after the war was commenced. 

He always spoke of the contest as our contest ; and he has fre- 
quently said, that he thought we would achieve our independence. 

During his last illness, he said he did not know what to think 
of the termination, as the combatants seemed to be so equally 
matched. 

There is another feature of his position in the late struggle, of 
great importance. Mr. Petigru could scarcely have believed in 
the right of the General Government, certainly not in the expe- 
diency of its attempting, to coerce a State after secession. Our 
reasons for this opinion shall be stated, and the public shall judge 
for themselves. 

Early in the war, perhaps even before the attack upon Sumter, 
Mr. Petigru wrote to his old friend, Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott, 
warning him against an attempt to subdue the South. He cau- 
tioned him against falling into the error of supposing that this 
was "a Union and Nullification affair." He dwelt upon the 
unanimity of the whole people ; and, deprecating it as much as his 
friend could do, he signified his views by this strong language, 
which would certainly have weight in our day. "But, my dear 
general, suppose you go on, and coerce the South, and sustain the 
Union. Would a Union supported by bayonets be the Union 
our fathers bled and died to accomplish?" Although we have 
marked the passage as a quotation, we do not mean to be under- 
stood as quoting literally ; but we are sure his meaning is given. 
The contents of the letter, we got from Mr. Petigru himself, under 
.circumstances to impress them upon the memory. If they are not 
accurately given, let it be shown from the letter itself. 

So much for his views of the struggle. The misapprehension 
is still stronger in relation to the estimate of him by our people. 
So far from his case showing intolerance, it has been cited, ever 
since the days of nullification, as an evidence how little political 



6 P HE FACE. 

differences influence the regards and fostering care of our people 
for their great men. 

For upwards of thirty years, he numbered, among his clients and 
his most intimate friends, men of opinions diametrically opposite to 
his own. He was Solicitor and Attorney-general, and through life 
could, whenever he wished, have been Judge or Chancellor or 
Chief Justice if the office had then existed. What higher proof 
could be given than his being appointed, just before the war, to 
codify the laws of the State, and being continued in this office, 
by annual election of the Legislature, until his death ? There never 
was a time that Mr. Petigru's opinion would have deprived him 
of any of the honors of his profession, nor of the highest social 
consideration possible to be awarded to any man. He was only 
not elected to represent the State or people in Congress, because 
his views were well known not to be theirs ; but even then wo 
sent him to the Legislature from Charleston. 

And how could it be otherwise ? Who could resist that cheery 
temper, that enlivening smile, those feelings, like his beautiful 
hair, showing no frost of age, but youthful, fresh, and genial ? 
And then the more robust qualities : Look at his courage ! 
Could a people who value it so fail to mark and appreciate its 
possession? See him before the Historical Society of South Caro- 
lina, where he says of the Revolutionary War, in that beautiful 
passage, deserving to live forever, "It is not true that all of the 
virtue of the country was in the Whig camp." 

Or before the Confederate Court, resisting the Sequestration 
Act, and declaring, in the stirring words of St. Paul, " I was free 
born." 

Who that ever observed the dauntless spirit of the man could 
fail to admire, and who that knew could fail to love him ? Not 
appreciated "? Persecuted for his opinions ? Was ever man more 
respected 'i Was ever one more free in the expression of his 
evei-y thought ? 



rHEFA CE. 7 

His daugliter, in a letter to tl>e public, has sliown that he met 
with nothing but respect and veneration. Petigru persecuted ? 
Why ! no man wlio knows any thing of his position here could say 
or believe such a thing. He was our pride and ornament. 

Observe the circumstances under which the meeting was held, 
to which we are now inviting your attention. It was in the spring 
of 1863, when the Federal arms had met many reverses, and 
their cause looked gloomy, and the Confederate pulse was beating 
high. It was just then that it pleased God to take away this 
great lawyer, this great Union man, from among us. Did he go 
down to the grave unlamented ? Were there no honors to his 
memory ? Who that was here can fail to recall the gloom that 
was thrown over the community ? Who can forget that mournful 
corthje that followed him to the tomb, — a private man, holding 
no office, with, generals and colonels and stout soldiers mingling 
their grief with our stricken city in the fall of her distinguished 
and well-beloved son ? 

And when it was all over, and he slept quietly, see what an 
assemblage of his brethren was grouped together to do honor to 
his memory ! — from the white-haired presiding officer (his friend 
through life) to the tyro without his first brief, — all ages, all poli- 
tics, all manner of thought, represented. See how they pour forth 
their love and admiration, without measure and without stint ! 

Consider the man, his opinions, the time, his eulogists, and 
it will be no longer difficult to say, that neither war nor poli- 
tics nor differences, nor any other thing, ever could, for one 
moment, sway them away fioai their respect and love for James 
Louis Petigru. 

Charleston, July, 1866. 



NOTE A. 

" History is false to her trust wlicn slie botrays the cause of truth, even 
under the influence of patriotic impulses. It is not true that all of the virtue 
of the country was in the Whig camp, pr that all of the Tories were a band 



» PREFACE. 

of ruffians. They were conservatives ; and their error was in carrying to 
excess the sentiment of loyalty, which is founded in virtue. Their constancy 
imbittcred the contest, but did not provoke it. Their cause deserved to fail ; 
but their sufferings are entitled to respect. Prejudice has blackened their 
name ; but history will speak of them as they were, with their failings and 
their virtues, as more tenacious than ambitious, rather weak than aspiring ; 
and show towards them the indulgence due to the unfortunate." — Petigru's 
Address before the South- Carolina Historical Sociefy." 



NOTE B. 

The following passage from the same address shows that Mr. Pctigru 
would not be himself inclined to condemn honest differences of opinion : — 

" South Carolina has been taunted with tiie division of parties that marked 
the war of independence. It is the reproach of ignorance : tlic division is 
pi'oof of sincerity, of freedom, of manliness of character." 



THE LATE JAMES L. PETIGRU. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING OF THE BAR OF CHARLESTON. 



A MEETING of the bar of Charleston was held on Wednesday, March 
25, 18G3, to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of their deceased 
brother, tlie Hon. James Louis Petigru. 

On motion of the Attorney General, I. W. IIayne, Esq., Henry 
A. DeSaussure, Esq., was called to the Chair, and the meeting further 
organized by the appointment of C. Richardson Miles, Esq., as 
Secretary. 

The Chairman, in opening the meeting, said, — 

There are times and occasions when the customary 
language of sympathy and condolence is inadequate 
to express the emotions of the heart. Death, in the 
ordinary course of human affairs, the common inheri- 
tance of humanity, excites np unusual disturbance ; 
but there are also extraordinary occasions which 
arrest public attention, excite the keenest sensibility 
of society, and diffuse general gloom over its compli- 
cated framework. The death of remarkable men 
often awakens the deepest solicitude and affections; 
and such is the event that has now convened the bar 
of Charleston. 

Our recent attendance on his obsequies has too 
mournfully realized to us that the Hon. James L. 
Petigru has been translated, by the dispensation of 
Providence, from the bar of his country to the bar 
of God. 

9 



10 MEMORIAL OF 

To abler hands must be confided, on a future and 
proper occasion, the duty of delineathig the elements 
of character, the professional learning, the genius and 
the moral elevation, of this remarkable man and 
accomplished jurist, who has left his impress on soci- 
ety, and on the bench and the bar of South Carolina, 
for the last half century. 

Descended in the maternal line from a respected 
Huguenot family, he received his academic education 
under Dr. Waddell, of the Willington Academy, and 
his collegiate education in the South-Carolina College, 
under Dr. Maxcy ; and pursued his legal studies in 
the office and under the supervision of the late Wil- 
liam Robertson, Esq., an influential and respected 
lawyer of Beaufort, who long enjoyed the confidence 
and professional support of that community. 

In stating the object of this meeting, it is neither 
my province nor my intention to anticipate the ex- 
pression of ?'/5 judgment of Mr. Petigru's prominent 
qualities, and of the proud pre-eminence which he 
obtained as the head of the legal profession in South 
Carolina. As primus interpares, his competitors at 
the bar, without invidious feeling, admitted his indis- 
putable right to occupy the front rank of his profes- 
sion, without a rival, without fear, and without 
reproach. His brethren throughout the State all 
conceded him intellectual superiority, and deeper 
learning, and a higher order of talent, than they pos- 
sessed. 

Mr. Petigru possessed by nature the rare endow- 
ments of genius for the creation of new and original 
ideas, blended with talents for combining facts, and 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 11 

marshalling established truths with admirable judg- 
ment and sagacity. Plis induction from his premises 
was always logical and lucid, and turnpihcd the legal 
pathway out of the most complicated labyrinth of 
law and fact. 

Though not intending hereby any labored eulo- 
gium on his character and worth, I cannot, as one of 
his personal friends and contemporaries for upwards 
of half a century, refrain from bearing my testimony 
to the high moral intrepidity, inflexible principles, 
the generous antagonism, and liberal practice, which 
characterized his professional career. His manly, 
generous nature disdained to envelop justice in 
technical meshes or metaphysical subtlety; and his 
effort ever seemed to be rather to eviscerate truth 
and justice than to succeed in his object at their 
expense. 

To the junior members of the bar he was peculiar- 
ly courteous and accessible ; and no one ever applied 
to his experience, vigorous intellect, and profound 
knowledge, for friendly consultation and instruction, 
without obtaining the benefit of his assistance. 

Such was the noble man whose loss we mourn ; such 
the calamity society has sustained. 

Attorney-Gen. Hayne, after a brief allusion to the sad occasion 
which had called the brethren of the bar of Charleston together, offered 
the following 

PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS. 

The death of one still in the full vigor of his facul- 
ties, whose name, by common consent of South- 
Carolinians, has been for forty years enrolled among 



12 MEMORIAL OF 

the great intellects of the State, is a bereavement 
not confined to the community in which he lived, or 
to the profession which he adorned. The State 
mourns the loss of one of her most gifted and worthy 
sons in the death of our brother lawyer, James L. 
Petigru. But because he was our brother, and the 
bar — the bar of Charleston — has afforded peculiarly 
his field of usefulness, and been the scene of his 
triumphs, it is fitting that the bar of Charleston 
should express, as such, their sorrow at his death, 
and their appreciation of the rich legacy he has 
bequeathed them in the bright example of a lawyer, 
as elevated in the morals of the profession as he was 
pre-eminent in learning and ability. Fifty years at 
the bar, — he was forty years ago made Attorney- 
General of the State. For eight years officially at 
the head of the bar, upon his resignation, now more 
than thirty years since, he became, and continued to 
the period of his death, its acknowledged leader. 
A leadership without official position, so universally 
conceded and so uninterrupted, has never, perhaps, for 
such a length of time, fallen to the lot of any other 
lawyer in any country. Never had that "jealous 
mistress," the Law, less cause for jealousy. His life- 
long singleness of devotion to his profession was not 
the least remarkable circumstance in his career. 
Though alive to every public enterprise, and always 
interested in the politics of the country, his attention 
was never, even for a time, distracted from the 
engrossing pursuit of his life. Though a ripe scholar, 
and passionately fond of letters, scholarship and 
letters were ever subordinate to his profession. 



/ 



JAMES L. PETIGTtU. 13 

Though eminently social, and from his wit and genial 
nature the delight of the convivial board ; though full 
of human sympathy and warm affections, — " the prim- 
rose path " never allured him to the neglect of the 
stern and rugged duties which were the habit of his 
life. But, in this singleness of devotion to the law, 
there was none of the sordidness of a Saunders or the 
narrowness of a Coke. It was his selected field for 
manly action. Here were displayed his love of the 
right, and his scorn for wrong. Here his friendships 
were made effective, and his generosity and charity 
bore fruit. The profits of the profession were his 
least consideration. The honors he coveted were 
honorable to the man as well as the lawyer. As a 
lawyer, he was a model. With learning unsurpassed, 
he applied the powers of his own mind to work out 
the principles involved. A " case " was as nothing, but 
for the principle it illustrated or established. With 
all his extensive reading, he cited few cases, but 
those were to the point ; and the principle contended 
for, he enforced with a fertility and aptness of illus- 
tration which were inexhaustible. 

Mr. Petigru's originality of manner, his humor, 
wit, sarcasm, and wondrous powers of ridicule, were 
weapons peculiarly his own, which it would be 
dangerous in any other man to attempt to imitate. 
Add to these courage, will, and indomitable persist- 
ency of purpose which never flagged or faltered, and 
he was a power felt and acknowledged in every 
sphere in which he moved. 

" Take him for all in all," it will be long ere " we 
look upon his like again." 



14 MEMORIAL OF 

He is dead ; but the days of his pilgrimage were 
more than the usual lot of man. " Threescore and 
ten " had for some time been passed ; but, until very 
recently, his was a robust and green old age. 

" And that which should accompany old age, — 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of fi-iends," — 

he had in no stinted measure. Peace be with him ! 

Resolved, That the Bar of Charleston, in the death of James L. 
Petigru, Esq., mourn in heartfelt sorrow the loss of a beloved and vener- 
ated brother, who for forty years has been their honored leader. 

Resolved, That, in token of this sorrow, they wear the usual badge 
of mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Chairman be requested to express to the family 
of the deceased the condolence and sympathy of the members of the 
Bar. 

Resolved, That copies of these proceedings be presented by the 
Attorney-General, in the names of the Charleston Bar, to the Court 
of Appeals at its next session, and to the Courts of Equity and of Common 
Pleas and General Sessions for Charleston District ; and that he ask that 
they be spread on the minutes of those courts respectively, and that they 
be presented by the District Attorney to the Confederate Court of South 
Carolina. 

R. Yeadon, Esq., rose to second the preamble and I'csolutions, and 
said, — 

Mr. Chairman, — The relations which existed be- 
tween myself and the lamented dead render it both 
my melancholy duty and high privilege to lay my 
humble offering on his bier. No one shares more 
largely than myself in the general sorrow of this com- 
munity at his decease ; and I stand second to none in 
the desire, however inadequate may be the perform- 
ance, to do fitting honor to his memory and -his 
worth. 

Mr. Petigru was indeed one of the most remarkable 
men that our community ever produced. Meaning no 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 15 

approach to profanity or irreverence in the alhision, 
he may, in respect of his gifts, moral and intellectual, 
personal and professional, have been appropriately 
called " wonderful counsellor." Graduating at our 
State college with the first honor of his class, he pur- 
sued the honorable and useful occupation of a school- 
master while preparing for the bar ; and, on his 
admission into the legal fraternity, he soon arose to 
the highest honors and emoluments of his profession. 
lie stood, during; his long and brilliant career as a 
lawyer, at the head of the profession, — undoubtedly 
so in this State ; and perhaps, also, both in the old 
Union and in the new Southern Confederacy. Law he 
studied and mastered as a science, and he was most 
profoundly versed in its learning and its principles. 
So much was this the case, that not only his brother 
practitioners looked up to him as a teacher, but even 
the bench regarded him as the Gamaliel of jurispru- 
dence. Well do many of us, his contemporaries, 
remember the numerous triumphs, before court and 
jury, which at once asserted and crowned his profes- 
sional pre-eminence. Cruger and Daniel stands as a 
monument of his learning and labor, — a cart having 
been necessary to convey his numerous and ponderous 
authorities to our highest court of State judicature; 
and his brilliant success was commensurate with his 
lavish expenditure of learning and toil. Pell and 
Ball was an achievement in its masterly analysis 
of the doctrine of presumptions ; as perfect a gem in 
its way as the thrilling eloquence of his gifted associ- 
ate and friend, Legare, called forth by the shipwreck 
tragedy which consigned husband and Avife, amid the 



16 



MEMORIAL OF 



rage and howl of the elements, to the same ocean- 
grave. DeCottes and Talvande showed him the 
generous and sympathizing champion of a much- 
wronged widow, and exhibited his power to move 
the passions and mould the verdict of the jury by the 
charm and potency of pathetic eloquence. Conspicu- 
ous among his professional characteristics and virtues 
was that noble generosity, which, in the cause of 
benevolence or of principle, gratuitously enlisted his 
powers and resources with a zeal and ability which no 
fee, however large, could so readily secure. Robert- 
son and Gilfillin vs. Shannon strikingly illustrated his 
holy abhorrence of oppression, and what may be 
styled the perseverance of benevolence, pursuing its 
noble and disinterested end undeterred by defeat, and 
hoping against hope, until, crowned by final and com- 
plete success, it gave liberty to the aged and time- 
worn tenant of the prison. 

Nothing could more decisively prove his legal 
pre-eminence than his selection by the State Legis- 
lature, notwithstanding his unpopular politics and 
opinions, to reduce to a code the statute laws of the 
State ; a highly honorable and responsible task, which 
he barely lived to complete. 

A passing tribute, too, is due to the remarkable 
and infinite power of wit and humor with which he 
relieved the asperities and the tedium of forensic con- 
flicts and investigations, convulsing auditory, bar, and 
even bench, with contagious merriment ; and also to 
the potency with which he applied ridicule and sar- 
casm as a forensic weapon and a test of truth. 

Much could be added to this portraiture of his 
professional character and career, did time and the 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 17 

occasion admit of the completion of the picture; — how 
truthful he was in the citation and application of 
authorities ; how fair, and above trick or artifice, in 
his practice ; how kind, paternal, and even brotherly, 
in his deportment to younger members of the legal 
fraternity. To sum up all in few but expressive 
words, he was at once the patriarch of the bar, and 
the Bayard of his profession, — sans peiir ct sans 
reproche. 

But it was not only as a profound lawyer that Mr. 
Petiiiru challeno;ed our admiration for his intellectual 
gifts and acquirements. lie was a classical scholar ; 
a man of literary habitudes ; a writer of taste and 
elegance, as often testified by the essay and the oration, 
couched in language drawn from the pure well of 
English undefiled ; it having been his peculiarity and 
pride to adhere, as closely as possible, to the Anglo- 
Saxon vocabulary. 

As a man, Mr. Petigru was full of noble qualities. 
He was generous and charitable even to a fault. He 
had "a heart to devise and a hand to do liberal 
things." His purse was ever ready at the call of the 
needy and deserving, and freely emptied itself to the 
wants of friendship. If his fortune had been as large 
as his heart, it would have been princely indeed ; but, 
owing much to his exceeding great liberality and 
fearless assumption of responsibility for friends, he 
may be said to have verified Daniel Webster's defini- 
nition or description of the lawyer, " One who works 
hard, lives well, and dies poor." Let it be the care 
and privilege of his brethren that his honored widow 
shall never realize the fact. 



18 MEMOniAL OF 

But the most distino-nishino: feature of Mr. Peti- 
gru's character was bis moral courage. Descended, 
maternally, from the Huguenot, his was that intrepid 
and martyr spirit which made him worthy of a race 
that numbered the great Conde and the chivalrous 
Constable Montmorenci among its noblesse and heroic 
commanders. True to principle, and fearless in 
the assertion of right, he never swerved to the 
right hand or the left to promote personal interest 
or court popular favor. Mailed in the armor of 
honesty, all respected his motives, and admired his 
boldness and independence, while they lamented 
what they believed to be his errors of opinion, as 
fearlessly avowed as they were conscientiously enter- 
tained. He seemed encircled, as it were, with an 
atmosphere of dignity, armed with some electric 
power to repel hostile or dishonoring assault. But 
often, in his long and useful career, was this noble 
trait of his character called into play by the dearest 
interests of our community ; and never did he fail to 
throw himself in the breach, and do valiant and 
efficient battle for the Right. Here let us recall the 
memorable occasion, when our city, temporarily 
frightened from her propriety by an emeiite at the 
workhouse, was on the brink of tarnishing her 
escutcheon by mob violence ; when the misguided 
demagogue, and the more criminal incendiary, stood 
ready to light the torch ; and when Mr. Petigi'u, as the 
intrepid champion of law and order, bravely breasted 
the torrent, warning our citizens not to emulate the 
Red Republicanism of France, and calming the 
troubled elements into peace and quiet. But for his 



JAMES L. PETIORU. 19 

interposition and that of noble compatriots at that 
fearful crisis, Calvary Church may have been made a 
funeral pile, and even the dwelling of his present 
eulogist razed to the ground, to the everlasting dis- 
grace of the Palmetto City. 

But here let me close this imperfect tribute to 
one who was the comfort of the domestic and the 
ornament of the social circle, a light of literature, and 
an apostle of jurisprudence. 

Tears for his loss ; the cypress and the willow for 
his grave ; homage to his memory. 

Sir, with heartfelt but melancholy satisfaction, I 
second the resolutions. 

lion. R. Barnwell Rhett followed, and said, — 

Mr. Chairman, — I obey, perhaps for the last time, 
the summons for the Charleston Bar to assemble 
together to commemorate the death of one of its 
members. Its most distin2;uished and its mostvener- 
able member, with but one exception, has left its toils 
and its honors, — my tutor in boyhood, my friend in 
early manhood, my better friend in advanced life, whom 
neither time nor fortune, private duties nor troubles, 
nor the angry public contests and differences of more 
than thirty years, ever induced to say to me an 
unkind word or to do an unkind deed. Private acts 
of friendship, I know, lose some of their sacredness 
by being disclosed to others ; but I am sure I shall 
be pardoned for mentioning an incident in our lives, 
which strongly displayed our relations and his own 
generous nature. There are many tests of friendship ; 
but the world recognizes one as paramount to all 



20 MEMORIAL OF 

others, — money. Christ hhnself seems to have con- 
sidered it as the most potent of all influences ; for it 
is the one thing he has to put as antagonist to him- 
self. " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon " is his 
twice-repeated declaration. The deceased gave me 
this test of his friendship. In the commercial con- 
vulsions of 1837, I thought I was ruined by the 
misfortunes of others. I went to him, and told him 
my troubles. He expressed to me his warm sym- 
pathy, and then said, " I have no money ; you know 
I cannot keep money : but my credit is yours, in any 
manner you choose to use it, to the last dollar of the 
property I possess." At this time he was in posses- 
sion of a considerable estate, the fruit of many years 
of labor and accumulation. I did not embrace his 
generous offer : but it shows you the man ; and it 
shows you also, in part, why I am here to-day to 
bear testimony to the character and worth of one of 
the bravest and truest of friends. 

Mr. Chairman, much has been well said, and much 
more will be said, of the characteristics and life of this 
distinguished man. This is not perhaps the time or 
the occasion in which his whole character can be de- 
lineated ; but I propose to lay before you a few of 
the traits that distinguished him from other men, 
and made him most esteemed and admired. 

To say that the deceased was a great lawyer is to 
say but little of his great qualities. He never was 
a mere lawyer to his clients. He was a friend, and a 
sincere friend ; and, when called on for his counsel, he 
never stopped at expounding the law, but placed before 
his clients the duties their positions required. With 



JAMES L. rSTIGRU. 21 

him, Jionor was worth more than property ; and he 
frankly and freely counselled the course that high 
morals required his clients to pursue, irrespective 
of law. A young gentleman, just arrived at manhood, 
sought his legal advice on a very delicate matter, 
relative to the conduct of property on the part of an 
executor. . He told him his legal rights, and then said 
to him, '•' This is no matter of law : it is a matter affect- 
ing your honor as a gentleman ; and you must 
redress it." I need not say that his advice was 
followed. Not long since, an old client went to him 
to make his will. lie produced a paper containing 
the heads of the will as he desired it should be made. 
Amongst other provisions was one prescribing, that, 
should any of his children die without leaving 
children, their portion should revert to his right heirs. 
'•' This is wrong," said Mr. Petigru : " your children 
ought to have the power of rewarding benefactions 
by the property you leave them, as you are now 
doing in your will; and you ought not to deprive 
them of this power ; " and he run his pen through the 
clause. A widow lady, after years of counsel and 
advice, proposed to him to send in his bill. " No," 
said he : " you have a large family, and must want 
money. If I die before you, you will find some 
memorandum of what you owe me in my books ; and, 
if you die before me, your estate can pay it. I cannot 
take money from you." Sir, I mention these inci- 
dents, known personally to me, and I have no doubt 
similar incidents are known to many present, to show 
you what sort of a lawyer our late associate was. He 
realized, in his sympathizing kindness, more perfectly 



22 MEMORIAL OF 

the old relation of patron and client among the 
Romans than any lawyer I ever knew. Nor was the 
mighty power his profession gave him ever abused to 
foster dispute, or to defeat justice by the rigorous 
enforcement of law. He knew very well that the laws 
dispense justice only in their general operation, and 
that, from the very necessity of our imperfect reason 
and nature, thousands of cases must occur in which 
law, in its application, is not justice ; and therefore 
he was ever assiduous to clear himself of any com- 
plicity with moral crime which the profession of law 
sometimes produces. Of his clients he was equally 
careful ; and, in more instances than one within my 
knowledge, he counselled the abandonment of legal 
rights, because, in his opinion, inconsistent with strict 
honesty and honor. 

The deceased did not seek power. The very few 
occasions in which he was a candidate before the 
people was rather to defeat what he deemed a false 
policy than to obtain place. The vulgar ambition 
of personal distinction or notoriety had no place in 
his capacious and noble mind. Perhaps, too, he feared 
power, remembering the great accountability it in- 
volved. Certainly no man has lived in our day who 
possessed so much moral and so little official authority. 
To control himself, and not others ; to do his duty, 
and not to win place, — seems to have been the ele- 
vated aim of his career. Vf ith his powerful intellect, 
keen wit, and fearless will, no man could have been 
more dangerous in a republic, if he had been desti- 
tute of high principles. But all these were placed 
upon the side of order, for the maintenance of truth, 



JAMES L. PETIGIiU. "23 

and furtherance of justice. His error, if error it was, 
rather led him to too much abstinence from power, 
than desire to possess it. He not only would not 
yield any of his convictions to obtain it, but he would 
practise no reserve in their enunciation. He quailed 
before no antagonism, but rather seemed to defy it. 
Esse qucmi videri, the proud motto of Plato, seemed ever 
to have been in his contemplation. The virtues of a 
good man are not exclusively his own : they belong- 
also to society and the country ; and if, by nny course 
of his, they are lost to others, he has not fulfilled the 
full measure of his duty. We cannot presume error 
in this particular in one so conscientious and watchful 
over himself as the deceased ; but many doubtless 
have deemed him too indifferent or too haughty in 
his disregard of power. With the great multitude 
of men, in public affairs, place is success. To conceal 
opinions where they are unpopular, to dissemble with 
the people, to support expediencies, and to make 
correct principles subordinate to policies, is ever the 
resorts, to obtain power, of men with weak minds or 
weaker principles. It is only the strong man — strong 
in conscious rectitude, strong in convictions of truth, 
strouii: in the never-fnilino; and eternal vindications 
of time — who can put aside the temptations of present 
power, and patiently submit to unofficial inferiority. 
Superficial observers may not understand, perhaps 
despise, the greatness of such a man. They are daz- 
zled by the external trappings and influences of power. 
But greatness in man consists of personal attributes, 
not in the external accidents around him. Indeed, 
power, without wisdom and principle to direct it, only 



24 MEMORIAL OF 

renders men more mean and contemptible. Henry 
VIII. of England, and Philip II. of Spain, were pos- 
sessed of vast power; yet are they described as pre- 
eminently the meanest men of their day. Mr. Petigru 
was a great man, without official power, — great in his 
moral characteristics, self-poised, disinterested, faithful, 
fearless. 

The deceased was no hiinier of popularity. He was 
no courtier, either in the saloons of the reputed 
great, or on the hustings before the people. The 
same characteristics which make the sycophant at 
courts make the demagogue before the people. 
Falsehood is the essential feature of both. To say 
what is agreeable, but not true ; to flatter with 
professions which are unreal, and thus to obtain con- 
fidence and support to farther objects of ambition, — 
is the usual course of the seekers of popularit//. The 
deceased doubtless valued the esteem of men ; but 
it was esteem based on truth and virtue. Favors 
are seldom just ; and favors of the people in repub- 
lican governments, not won by service or merit, are 
as dangerous to the people as they are corrupting 
to the individual. They are dangerous to the peo- 
ple, because they do not imply that fidelity and in- 
tet^rity which are essential to the administration 
and perpetuity of this form of government; and 
they corrupt the individual, who learns, by his eleva- 
tion, that correct principles are not essential to offi- 
cial distinction. In the noble language of Lord 
Mansfield, he might have said, " I honor the people : 
I love popularity ; but it is that popularity which 
follows, not that which I sought after." Yet, although 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 25 

not seeJcinr/, lie was not without popularity. It fol- 
lowed him in all the walks of life ; and, if it did not 
lift him to high official station, it was because his 
views of public policy were opposed to those of the 
great majority of the people with whom he lived. 
False confidence in the people, induced by false pro- 
fessions, — which is the great cause of the overthrow 
of republics, — could never find countenance in his 
elevated patriotism. 

Mr. Petigru was essentially a conservative, — conser- 
vative in all his views of society, government, and reli- 
gion. He detested all the new inventions which 
would arm society against itself, by pretensions to 
organize and control it. He hated the pernicious 
dogmas of Thomas Paine, and the whole batch of 
French atheists and philosophers, who, by denying 
the weakness of our Mien nature, would set man 
against his fellow man, in vain eiforts for abstract 
justice and equality, and vainer efforts for human 
perfectibility. He was a conservative in government. 
He clang, perhaps too much, to things as they were, 
for the dangerous times in which he lived. He was 
a supporter of the Union of the United States, as 
long as it lasted ; and, when it went down, he looked 
to the future with the gloomiest forebodings, — too 
sadly realized, and still covered with darkness, when 
death closed his eyes upon the terrible contest it 
involved. Yet to the behests of his native State, in 
casting off the Union of the United States, he bowed 
with all humility. He feared change ; for change in 
governments too often, he knew, produced lawless- 
ness in power, — a lawlessness which may endanger 



26 MEMORIAL OF 

the welfare of a State, more from its own agjents 
than from the power of external foes. Change also 
broke off those habits of submission and support to a 
government, which often constitute its strongest ele- 
ment of stability. He tried, therefore, to follow the 
injunction of the Psalmist, " Seek peace and insure 
it." His generous and noble nature could not realize 
the dangers others thought they saw hanging over 
the destinies of the South from our Northern associ- 
ates. He could not believe in their hate and hostil- 
ity, when not only good faith, but manifest interest, 
demanded a policy on their part of forbearance and 
peace. Like thousands and tens of thousands of the 
best men in the South, he could not understand the 
characteristics of the people of the North until devel- 
oped by the stern test of war. He was conservative 
in religion. Like all men of strong convictions and 
deejD sensibilities, his reverence for holy things was 
great. He admired the old writers, the old paths 
of religion, the old organization, the old ritual, 
the venerable ordinances of the Church. He clung 
with admiration and love to the Church itself, as the 
grand and appointed instrumentality for the eleva- 
tion and salvation of men. His antique taste de- 
lighted in old fanes, with their majestic and solemn 
architecture, stained and worn by the waste of ages. 
The mysteries of religion, inevitable from the nature 
of God himself, and our finite intelligence, made 
him no skeptic. They only made him wonder and 
adore. Hard-by the place in St. Michael's, where, 
for forty years, he attended the worship of God, he 
now lies interred. We mourn our loss in the death 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 27 

of such a man ; but our loss, we humbly trust, is his 
gain in eternal peace, happiness, and glory. The 
lauguage of the old Latin poet, with whom he was 
so familiar, in his Ode to Virgil on the death of 
Quintilius, may not be inappropriate : — 

Cui Pudor, et Justitioe soror 
Incorrupta Fidos, nudaque Veritas 

Quando ulluni inveniet parem ? 
Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit : 
Nulli Hebilior, quam tibi Virgili. 

Nelson Mitchell, Esq., rose and said, — 

3fr. Chairman, — As it has been my privilege, for 
several years past, to enjoy the opportunity of free 
and almost daily association with our deceased 
brother, I would desire to add something, however 
feeble, to the large though well-earned tribute 
which his many virtues and striking qualities have 
called forth. 

It is not an uncommon impression, perhaps fre- 
quently well founded, that much private and careless 
intercourse, with those whose efforts on signal occa- 
sions excite our admiration, tends rather to lower 
our estimate of their powers and originality. This, 
certainly, was not the case with regard to Mr. Peti- 
grn. It was always after much and familiar inter- 
course that our appreciation of him was the highest. 
The warmth of his love for justice, as for something 
incarnate ; his jealous vigilance over the rights of 
truth, and resentment of flilsehood in every form, as 
of a personal wrong ; that unswerving intrepidity 
of opinion which so marked him ; his pathetic ten- 
derness, not less for all human infirmity than fov 



28 MEMORIAL OF 

suffering, — were always then most impressive ; the 
breadth and vigor of his perceptions, his keen and 
unsparing analysis, so conspicuous that one would 
almost doubt wdiether, on public occasions, even 
when most successful, he had quite come up the 
height and vigor of which his nature was capable. 

We have all known and enjoyed the zest and in- 
dividuality of his unrestrained conversation, the 
interest of which was so much due to the liberality 
and earnestness of his nature. Pie was not one of 
those who thought, that, in this daily commerce, his 
expenditures were to be nicely adapted to their 
apparent importance or their immediate results. He 
would, to a cordial though humble hearer lavish his 
most felicitous illustrations and strikins: views as 
freely as to a large and influential assemblage. His 
earnestness, too, especially commanded our respect, 
when considered in view of those fz:raceful endow- 
ments generally so productive and sometimes so 
mischievous. 

Gifted with a most subtle wit and genial apprecia- 
tion of the ludicrous, any thing like levity or paradox 
was always most foreign to him. Wit and humor 
were never resorted to for mere patch-work embel- 
lishments ; with him they were, for the most part, 
modes of thought, and instruments of illustration. 
If at times he pursued a grotesque or pleasant image 
beyond the range of his subject, we might be sure it 
had originated there. 

His instance was an instructive illustration of what 
an error it is, in appreciating striking character, to 
sever the moral from the intellectual and ambitious, 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 29 

instead of considerino; them too:ether. It was no 
doubt owing much to the earnestness on which I 
have dwelt, and his broad sympathies, that he so pre- 
served the vigor of his faculties and the freshness of 
his pulsations ; for, though full ripe in years when 
he terminated his career, to the last he exhibited 
nothing of age but its dignity and its wisdom. 

David Ramsay, Esq., followed. 

3fr. Chairman, — I would fain add my tribute to 
those of my seniors. Others have spoken of Mr. 
Petigru to whom he was nearer in years and profes- 
sional position ; but it will not be denied us, who 
knew him in his later life, to share the regret of con- 
temporaries and immediate successors. As one of 
his many students, I had much to thank him for; as 
a member of the bar, I could feel proud of friendly 
association with such a man. So much has been 
said, fitting and decorous, that to speak again of his 
j)rofessional or private character were to use only 
enfeebling repetition. We are here to honor him as 
an advocate, and have spoken of his successful career 
as a great lawyer ; that, fortunate in this career of 
life, he was fortunate in the opportunity of his death ; 
that, as he lived to vindicate law, so he was not to 
die before recalling the jurisprudence of his State, 
under her sanction and commission, to system and 
order, lie was yet more fortunate in associating his 
name with higher principle than can be found in the 
collation of local laws : these partake of the infirmi- 
ties of their times, and with them, happily for man, 
must be forgotten. The peculiar law of any period. 



30 MEMORIAL OF 

the peculiar institution, will soon be a tradition, giv- 
ing place to the better labor of a more enlightened 
future ; yet from the date of mau, through all his- 
tory, interwoven with the very thread of time, is an 
eternal right. Seldom does it flill to a purely legal 
activity to vindicate essential principle ; but that 
which is placed upon this height, w^hatever else the 
waters of oblivion overwhelm, is far above their 
surge. The greatest jurist of the past, who linked 
his name to the greatest code in human law, had, in 
his remote age, to choose between right and life. 
He sealed his testament with blood, preferring the 
wrath of Caracalla to the accusation of innocence ; 
and, long as remains, language, will vibrate, through 
its various channels, the dying jurist's undying 
answer, — " Qiice facia Icedunt pietatem, existimationcm, 
verccimdiam, et, nt ge7ieraliter dixeiim, contra honos mores 
fiiint, nee nos facere posse credenclum!' James Louis 
Petigru laid " an offering of age upon the altar ofjustice^^ 
as unquenchable lustre. When the Sequestration 
Act required the confidence of clients to be betrayed, 
the trusts of imbecile age, incapable infancy, irres- 
ponsible lunacy, the defence of widows and helpless 
women, the ties of nearest kindred and sacred grati- 
tude, all to be abandoned, his was the voice that 
gave denijil to the delator's search. His last effort 
was truly the coronation of his Avork. Who can for- 
get his voice, so long eloquent for others, then plead- 
ing for himself as to the question, why he made re- 
fusal, as he answered with a despairing accent, " Be- 
cause I was free born." He well deserved such heri- 
tage, for all his long life was devoted to Right, to 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 31 

Truth, to Freedom ; and, now that he is no more, 
gratitude, friendship, and veneration are met to 
mourn him here, as in all the circles of his life. 
Even when we are gone, all we loved and honored 
forgotten, our laws and customs questions of anti- 
quity, his last great defence will still survive. I 
stand among those who shall see the dawn of another 
age, in which his recollection will endure as long as 
gratitude and affection ; even afterwards, I know 
that there is an unfading memory for those whose 
words, in unison with the sublime harmony of eternal 
Eight, rose above the transient discords of Time. 

George S. Bryan, Esq., was the next speaker. 

Mr. Chairman, — I feel that it is scarcely per- 
mitted me to be a gleaner in this field, or to speak 
at all in this presence ; and, if my relations with him 
who has gone were simply those of a lawyer, I 
might well be silent. The generation with whom he 
passed the prime of his life, the renowned lawyers 
and orators with whom he wrestled on this arena, — 
Hayne, Hunt, McDuffie, Grimke, Bailey, Preston, 
Legare, Harper, — have long gone to their rest. 
With diffidence, those of us who are here, the chil- 
dren, as it were, the grandchildren, of him who has de- 
parted, — with diffidence, indeed, may we attempt to 
measure his mind, and fix his rank as a lawyer. But 
who of us shall sound the depths of his humanity ? 
Who shall measure his large heart ? Who shall seek 
to circumscribe within strict lines that great liberal 
nature, which, in its fulness, overtlowed all bounds, 
and poured itself all abroad ? Who can describe the 



32 MEMORIAL OF 

delights of his fellowship, and paint the pleasant, 
familiar spirit, so merry and so gamesome ; jocund 
as the morn ; bright and joyous as the spring with 
all its birds, and warm as its quickening breath ? 

Great and unrivalled was our friend as a lawyer, 
touchingly and simply and profoundly eloquent as 
an advocate, and distinguished and incomparable as 
a wit ; but how much greater than all these the 
genial, loving, heroic man, James L. Petigru ! 

His charity has been celebrated ; and never, in- 
deed, could the words of the great poet be applied 
more truly to any one than to him : — 

" For his bounty, 
There was no winter in't: an autumn 'twas, 
That grew the more by reaping." 

And how tender, considerate, and delicate in the 
bestowal of his favors ! His benefits descended, like 
the dews of the night, in silence, without a witness, 
and were known only by their fruit, and the voice 
of gratitude, which could not be silenced. The cry 
of distress was to him as the voice of God. He 
counted not the cost of his compassion : whether 
his treasury was full or empty, he gave. He drew 
upon the future when he had not, and made good 
his drafts by toil, often continued deep into the 
night, and frequently surprised by the first ray of 
the morning. And he gave not only to the good : 
it was enough that a fellow-creature should be aban- 
doned and forlorn and wretched to enlist his sympa- 
thies and command his aid. And just at the point 
that the world dropped such an one, and he had not 
a friend, he became his friend, and covered him with 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 33 

the mantle of his protection. It was for the only 
Judge to judge and to punish: it was for him to pity 
and to help. But his was not simply the charity 
that gives and serves : his also, in rare measure, 
without pretension or profession, that diviner and 
rarer charity, which " suffereth long, and is kind ; 
envieth not; vaunteth not itself; is not puffed 
up ; doth not behave itself unseemly ; seeketh not 
her own ; is not easily provoked ; thinketh no evil ; 
rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the 
truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
all things, endureth all things." 

How touching and sublime his patience under 
every variety of ills ! And he whose instinct it was 
to give and to aid, himself surprised hy misfortune, 
with what magnanimity did he receive, with what 
nobler generosity bear obligation, and, after ten- 
fold requital, still owe, and ever pursue, with service, 
affection, and gratitude, those who had stood by him 
in his hour of trial ! 

It was my fortune to have known him long, and 
my unequalled privilege to have felt, as it w^ere, the 
beatings of his heart, when he had to meet the great 
occasions of his life. That brave heart never flut- 
tered or Mtered in the path of duty. But, Mr. 
Chairman, how much it cost him to be t^'ue to coun- 
try, to deny affection, to differ utterly with those 
whom he tenderly loved, and to turn his loving na- 
ture away from those, who, differing, yet clung to 
him ! 

And he whose business it was to deal with the 
subtleties of men and subtleties of the law, and 



34 MEMORIAL OF 

whose life was passed in the metropohs of trade, and 
centre of politeness, — how free he was from all mo- 
dislmess, sophistication, and art ! His eyes first open- 
ing upon the light amidst the virgin scenes of Nature, 
he was ever her unweaned child. His devotion to 
her, knowing no abatement, only grew warmer and 
fonder with advancing years. He loved to quit the 
hackneyed haunts of men, and to be alone with her. 
And she repaid his fidelity with her own rewards. 
The freshness of her fields enveloped him as an 
atmosphere ; and she breathed into him the spirit of 
her own immortal youth, and for the barrenness and 
frosts of age she gave him the crowned garlands of 
spring. 

It is a grave error that he was, as has been sup- 
posed, indifferent to opinion, and careless of office ; 
that he did not appreciate the seat and authority of 
the magistrate, and properly estimate those high 
places, which, whilst they afford the surest passports 
to distinction and the largest opportunities of useful- 
ness, are accepted by the multitude as the only 
measure of mind, and evidence of greatness. He 
knew well the value of the golden candlestick to the 
candle ; and that a light, to be seen afar, must be set 
upon a hill. No one more than he submitted rever- 
ently to all just authority ; no one more than he was 
a lover of order ; no one felt more profoundly the 
deep significance of the line of the inspired sage and 
poet, — 

" Take but degree away, untuue that string." 

No one loved his countrymen and fellow-men with a 
fonder affection, and craved their recognition and 



JAMES L. PETIGBU. 



35 



sympathy with a more passionate longing ; and, if it 
ever seemed otherwise, it was but the fretting of the 
eddy, produced by the very depth and force of the 
current ; and no one more than he could feel denial, 
postponement, exclusion, suppression. He bore them 
all with manly fortitude ; with cheerful submission, 
without parade ; a martyr, without affecting martyr- 
dom ; defeated, but never overthrown. 

" Who hath beheld decline upon his brow, 
Or seen his mind's convulsion leave it weak ? " 

His own individual greatness sufficed to sustain 
him. But he suffered ; and, suffering, he was Avihing 
to suffer in the cause of truth and justice. For them 
he was prepared to suffer all things. As, in his 
charity, he was charitable at the cost of ease and 
wealth and ceaseless toil ; so, in his love of country, 
he was faithful at the expense of place and power 
and fame. He had ambition, — the ambition of excel- 
lence, of service, of a pure fame, — that echo of the 
world's abiding respect, affection, and gratitude. He 
knew that the mere practising lawyer, like the mere 
practising physician, unless he reach the heights of 
oratory or speak from the chair of the professor, can 
serve only his neighbors, and can scarcely hope to 
escape from provincial obscurity ; and though he 
may be useful, may be honored, may have troops of 
friends, may live in an atmosphere of gratitude, yet 
his name scarcely survives the day of his death, and, 
at best, lives only in the remembrance of the genera- 
tion he served and the neighborhood for whom he 
labored. It wo aid have been an escape and a relief, 



36 MEMORIAL OF 

and a matter for sober joy, if, in an office worthy of 
his abihty, and commensurate with his gifts and 
accomphshments, he could have been permitted to 
have dispensed justice to this once broad country, 
and enunciated universal principles in a manner to 
have challenged the lasting admiration, respect, and 
honor of mankind. To have sat alons-side of Mar- 
shall and Story, and from that seat where the judge 
must frequently become the lawgiver, and founding 
his decisions upon the broadest sentiments of equity, 
whilst he pronounces as a judge, must teach as a 
moralist, — to have been allowed to speak from such 
a commanding height, and granted the opportunity 
of clothino; Rio;ht in the forms which would have 
made the world and the latest generations his reader 
and debtor ; Avhich would have carried his name to 
Westminster Hall, and commended it as an author- 
ity to be cited by the great and good in all lands, 
in the profession to which he devoted his life, — this 
would have been with him, indeed, a crowning con- 
solation, and his cup would have been full. 

This he had to forego ; this he had consciously to 
forego. He knew that the gate to power — the only 
gate to power in the Confederacy — was through 
the State. Throuoch that door alone could he reach 
the country and the world, and hope to win the 
large distinction worthy of his genius. He loved 
his people better than himself; and he could not sub- 
scribe to a creed which he believed would carry 
death to the countr}^, and bring ruin on his State ; 
and, without complaint, he submitted himself to his . 
limited lot and narrow destiny. 



JAMEf< L. PETIGRU. 37 

Justice it was that ruled all his noble life : with 
him it was but an expression for Deity, with which 
he could no more trifle than with his Maker, and 
to which he bowed in utter and child-like submission. 
This it was that made him the friend, and not the 
flatterer, of the people ; the champion of equal rule 
and law, and the unswerving foe of license and self- 
will, whether of the people, the demagogue, or the 
despot ; this the inspiration and the soul of his death- 
less love of liberty : this it was that lifted him above 
the distinctions of class, of wealth, of power, and 
made him so strong against the oppressor; which 
reared his arm so defiantly against all power that 
would play the tyrant, whether that of an individual 
or a class, or whether it came clothed with the sanc- 
tions and authority of government. He counted not 
government itself, when it would command to wrong : 
he was willing to suffer wrong, but c'ould not be 
made to do it. lie w\as fliithful to justice, even when 
the sentiment of country had to be opposed ; and 
bore it triumphantly in the flxce of all opposition, 
and dared to be true at the hazard of reproach and 
contumely, and desertion of friends. 

He has gone to his rest. He has so lived as to win 
from all the award that he ivas an honest man, and to 
unite even his opponents in the declaration, that, however 
wideli/ he may have erred, he tvas still true. It ivill he for 
a different people or remoter generation to sit in judgment 
upon his opinions and counsels, and to concede or deny to 
him the merit of superior wisdom. 

I have been betrayed into saying more than I had 
thought to say. Would only that it were worthier! 



38 MEMORIAL OF 

But I could not be silent when he was to be honored, 
whose face, from my boyhood, was never turned 
upon me but in kindness, and whose friendship I 
have counted the honor, privilege, solace, and suffi- 
cient support of my life, under all circumstances. 

By request of Gen. William E. Martin, and in his absence, lion. 
William D. Porter read the following tribute from him : — 

31)'. Chairman, — Having been unexpectedly de- 
prived of the mournful gratification of joining the 
l)ar in person in their tribute to our deceased brother, 
I solicit the indulgence of the meeting to be permitted 
to pLice on record my sense of our deep and irrepa- 
rable loss. If this were one of the usual assemblages 
which often sadly enough call us together, I should 
not attach sufficient iniportance to my position to 
prefer so unusual a request. But I hope the indul- 
gence will be extended to me in consideration of the 
friendship of our distinguished brother, which I in- 
herited from one whom he loved dearly ; a friend- 
ship of which I have received the delightful and 
never-to-be-forgotten proofs, from my earliest recollec- 
tion to the last interview I had with him in the sick- 
ness which removed him from us. 

No one within my observation has gone down to 
the errave leavino; a wider circle of devotedlv attached 
friends than Mr. Petigru. I have seen others pass 
away, whose position attracted more of the notice 
of the world. They occupied some one or other of 
the theatres — the senate, the field, or the world 
of letters — on wdiich national fame is acquired. He 
filled none of these. The forum, a limited one, too, 



JAMES L. PETIGIiU. 39 

for one fitted to shine in one so much more extended, 
and the social circle, ever gladdened by his presence, 
were the principal and almost only spheres in which 
he moved. In his long and laborious and useful life, 
he became personally well known to a very large num- 
ber of individuals. The memory, therefore, which lives 
after him, is that of personal knowledge, derived from 
actual notice and observation by a very large number 
of countrymen and countrywomen. It may be safely 
affirmed, that no one has left behind him more actual 
enduring recollections of greatness of mind, extent and 
range of acquirement, and the charm and fascination 
of social intercourse. 

My pen would fail in any attempt to sketch the 
greatness of his professional achievements. From the 
time when he first appeared, the member of a coun- 
try bar, unaided by friends, and unsupported by the 
adventitious circumstances which often introduce men 
to public notice, he exhibited that " persistive consis- 
tency " which early marked him as one certain of 
bearing off the highest honors of his profession ; and, 
long before the day and generation of many here 
present, he had fulfilled the expectations of his early 
promise. It could not have been otherwise. In the 
commencement of his studies, he laid broadly and 
deeply the foundation upon which was built the super- 
structure of those great attainments which have ele- 
vated him to so enviable a rank in his profession. 
The law was studied by Mr. Petigru as a great and 
noble science. He drank, not from the muddy stream 
which flows by the side of the common wayfarer, but 
far up where it springs pure and undefiled from the 



40 MEMORIAL OF 

sources of the fountain. His legal opinions rested 
upon great principles ; and, when he quoted decided 
cases, he did not seem to have derived his views from 
them, but rather to adduce them for the purpose of 
showing the concurrence of other minds in the posi- 
tions he held. He seemed rather to sustain the cases 
than they to sustain him. In the ethics of his profession 
he set the brightest example. To beginners he was 
always kind and accessible. He did not avail himself 
of any technical exception, unless it involved the 
merits of the controversy ; and, in his own language, 
" did not remember ever to have turned a lawyer out 
of court because he did not understand his business." 
The distinguishing traits of his legal mind were love 
of truth and justice. Hence it has been often re- 
marked, that no honor or emolument could tempt 
him into a cause where either was violated. He was 
much distinguished by moral courage ; and those 
familiar with him will recall striking instances where 
he has espoused, without expectation of reward, and 
in opposition to the frowns of the community, the 
cause of those whom he deemed friendless and op- 
pressed. With his ardent temperament, and his innate 
sympathy with the weak, he may have doubtless 
sometimes exhibited that strong professional bias from 
which no one is exempt; but there are few whose 
judgments, if so clouded, could lay claim to so much 
of generosity, and disinterestedness of motive. He was 
always remarkable for becoming identified with his 
client. Once embarked, and convinced of the justice 
and equity of his cause, he spared not himself in its 
support. Those who have observed him in the re- 



JAMES L. PETIGRU. 41 

sponsible position of an advocate in a capital cause 
will accord to him all that self-immolation so well 
described by a great modern jurist; though I do not 
mean that his patriotism would justify the application 
of the concluding paragraph : — 

" The advocate knows, in the discharge of his office, 
but one person in the world, — that client, and none 
other. To save that client by all prudent means, to 
protect that client at all hazard and cost to all others, 
and among others to himself, is the highest and most 
unquestioned of his duties. He must not regard the 
alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction, 
which he may bring on any others ; nay, separating 
even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, 
and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go 
on, reckless of the consequences, if his fate should be 
unhappily to involve his country in confusion for his 
client's protection." 

All the professional honors our friend desired were 
conferred upon him through life ; and the latest he 
received was the highest, rendered as it was at a 
time of great excitement, when his political views 
were well known not to be in harmony with those 
of the State. Such an instance, so rare in republics, 
is alike a testimonial to the excellence of his life and 
character, and creditable to the magnanimity of the 
Commonwealth. He loved the State with all the 
ardor of his enthusiastic nature ; and she testified to 
his latest breath that he enjoyed alike her esteem, 
her confidence, and lier love. 

But with all our pride in contemplating the honor 
he conferred upon our profession by his upright 



42 MEMORIAL OF 

walks in its paths, with all the gratitude we feel for 
setting us all an example so well worthy to be fol- 
lowed, I turn with greater pleasure to the contem- 
plation of his character and virtues.' There is an 
inner circle into which I would not presume to in- 
trude on this public occasion ; in which, perhaps, 
he was seen, of all others, to the greatest advajitage. 
As friends and companions only are we now per- 
mitted to speak of him. 

There was a charm in his society rarely met with. 
We all knew him to be a man of great courage. 
We felt in our daily intercourse that he was very 
kind of heart; that his temperament was genial, and 
his affections remarkable for their tenderness. Those 
whom he loved he loved always, through the world's 
frowns, as well as through its smiles ; and, when they 
died, he loved the children for the parents' sake. 
His attachments never grew cold. His feelings 
seemed always young. There was a freshness about 
them rarely found among those of advanced years ; 
and they w^ere manifested not only to individuals, 
but also in local attachments. The blight which in- 
tercourse with the world, and many disappointments, 
often throw over the feelings of earlier years, seem 
to have been unknown by him ; and years brought 
no abatement of early affections. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that hist society was a 
source of unmingled pleasure to the aged, the middle- 
aged, and the child. All were warmed and glad- 
dened by his presence. They met him with pleasure, 
and separated from him with regret. 

Our last earthly separation has come. It has come 



JAMES L. PETIGBU. 43 

to US who were cheered and gladdened by his pres- 
ence ; whose time passed pleasantly when he was 
with US ; who have witnessed his triumphs, and re- 
joiced at his success. All of him has not left us. 
We can never be deprived of his pleasant memories. 
His monument is in the heart of each as an enduring 
monument to true friendship, manly sincerity, high 
courage, generosity, and benevolence. 

" Ars utinam mores aniinumque cffingere posset, 
Pulchrior in terris — nulla tabula foret." 

Rendered by one of Mr. Petigru's pupils beautifully 
thus : — 

" Could Art but paint his manners and his mind, 
Earth would produce no tablet of the kind." 

John Phillips, Esq., offered the following additional resolution : — 
Resolved, That the Chief Justice of this State, the Hon. John B. 
O'Neall, be requested to deliver an eulogy on the life and character of 
the late James L. Petigiu, LL.D., at such time and place as will suit his 
convenience. 

B. J. Whaley, Esq., also submitted the following resolution: — 
Resolved, That, as an additional mark of our appreciation of the learn- 
ing and virtues of Mr. Petigru, the members of this bar do cause to be 
painted a full-length portrait of him, to be placed in the Library Room 
of the Court of Appeals ; and that, to this end, the Chairman of this meet- 
ing do appoint a Committee to be charged therewith. 

The preamble and resolutions were then put by the Chairman, and 
unanimously adopted. The resolutions of Mr. John Phillips and Mr. 
B. J. Whaley, were also unanimously adopted. 

On motion of J. W. Gray, Esq., the proceedings of the meeting were 
ordered to be published in the newspapers of the city. 
On motion of INIr. Gray, the meeting then adjourned. 

C. Richardson Miles, Secretary. 















~x> !>- 



























■IJRS?!* 









^3 










=^^ 












>5> 




































yX' 



,13 






:-sr>-3 



3.^ 









» 3> > 



_z> y^ ■ yy ^y^ 

> » 33 o 

^ > y>^ ^ 

y >^D3 






^3 > ^w 



